Business news for Fri, 21 Dec 2007 & with words market+review. 2 news.

MOST Chinese mainland brokers might grin when they review their performance this year. Yet looking to next year, they might be wiping that grin as the future comes with both opportunities and challenges. In 2007, many domestic brokerage firms succeeded in keeping their balance sheets in the black, and better - profit gains in many cases were considerably high. CITIC Securities Co, China's biggest broker, has replaced Nomura Holdings Inc as Asia's largest securities firm by market value, after its shares soared more than eight times in the past 12 months. CITIC Securities reported a net profit of 4.16 billion yuan (US$562.1 million) in the third quarter this year. As the most recent figure available showed, its profit boasted a growth of 558.22 percent compared with the same period last year. Haitong Securities Co, another heavy-weighted player in the ground, posted a net profit of 4.09 billion yuan in the first nine months, surging nearly 15 times from a year earlier. The

WITH US antitrust clearance for its DoubleClick purchase, Google's focus now turns to European regulators, who are expected to be more critical of the top search engine linking up with a market leader in online advertising. The proposed US$3.1-billion transaction, which is strongly opposed by privacy advocates, cannot be completed without approval from the European Commission, whose review deadline is April 2. The Federal Trade Commission said that the deal would not significantly lessen competition in the online advertising market, rebuffing complaints from Microsoft Corp and AT&T Inc that it would give Google a dominant position. "The FTC's strong support sends a clear message - this acquisition poses no risk to competition and will benefit consumers," Eric Schmidt, Google Inc's chief executive, said. "We hope that the European Commission will soon reach the same conclusion." The European Commission declined to comment on the FTC's decision, spokesman